On this site, I’ve talked a lot about how, as a Seer, I track my dreams to understand what God is saying to me in different seasons and to nations. However, dream interpretation through the Holy Spirit is a gift God makes available to all believers!

Regardless of your calling, it is normal for Christians to have dreams with specific significance for themselves and their communities.

Through the lens of the bible, using Holy Spirit led discernment, and in order to grow in their walk with Jesus, Christian dream interpretation is a valuable tool for the Church. If you want to learn more about the concepts behind Christian dream interpretation, check out this great resource for beginners.

If you are interested in practically learning Holy Spirit led dream interpretation, check out this video tutorial full of spreadsheets, gifs, and practical steps!

Templates

The templates I used in the video are available here for free download!

Here is a template spreadsheet to record your dreams (just click)

This file is a example dream symbol dictionary word document (just click)

And here is a template to record your dream symbols, thereby creating a personalized symbol dictionary.

The instructions for using both files are included in the video. Happy spreadsheeting!

Recently in my travels, I have been spending time with a family who has a 17 month old baby. Developmentally, she faces an important transition point as she navigates the pressure to learn words. Often, she points to objects, makes eye contact with her parents or sisters, and wordlessly groans, moaning until her family responds and she finds satisfaction.

Similar to the vocal groans of this baby, our God is also a God who groans. As another segment of this series on sound, language, and apostolic ministry to the nations, today I will focus on the sound of God’s deep desires through the Holy Spirit, and how to put our deep yearning in tune with his to be most useful for his Kingdom.

While it would be tempting to know God as only the one who “rejoices over us with singing”, we invariably must know him as the God who groans over us in travail. In the Romans 8:26, we are introduced to the sound of God’s deep yearning through the Holy Spirit’s moaning.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

Romans 8:26

In hearing God’s vocal groans, we must choose to let him tune us. In choosing the cross, Jesus chose to tune his own yearning to the sound of the Holy Spirit’s yearning over us.

In choosing the cross, Jesus exemplified both human surrender and the divine, vocal yearning of the Trinity in intercession. Unlike groaning after his own desires, Jesus’ models God’s humility through self-abandon and positions himself to be attuned to God.

How Jesus Died: Implications for how to Navigate the Many Deaths of the Christian Life

Jesus’ willingness to be in tune to the sound of God’s yearning corresponds to his role as Redeemer of All Creation (humanity included).

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve experience specific consequences of sin. If you read carefully, these specific consequences are an invitation into God’s own longing. To Adam (and his descendants), God gives difficult physical labor and makes clawingly visible the fruitlessness of our own efforts. To Eve (and her descendants), God gives a sense of unsatisfied desire, isolation, helplessness, and of deep groaning in the pain of delivery.

Heaven is the Fullness of Christ’s Reward, and he is Ours

To a person unfamiliar with the character of God, the intensity of the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sins would be evidence that God was not interested in saving human beings. However, through Jesus we know that God used Adam and Eve’s initial moaning and groaning to draw them towards the sound of their own deep desire for more.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

Psalm 42:7

From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. 27God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 

Acts 17;26-27

It is ultimately this human desire for more that God answers through Jesus. Instead of merely settling for the knowledge of good and evil through our senses (Genesis 2:16-17), through Christ, God empowers us to find true meaning and life (Revelation 2:7). Through their descendants, God did not leave Adam and Eve as orphans, but responds to our deepest longings for “more” and “better” than the world’s evil or our own brokenness through Jesus.

In Christ, instead of striving we have found our unearned salvation and God’s own labor on our behalf. Instead of anticlimax, we find our full satisfaction, our full belonging, our full empowerment, and our happy ending worth waiting for.

The Deepest Desire of the Human Heart is Christ, but what does God long for?

God yearns in self-abandon, unsatisfied until Jesus in us is formed. Even a short overview of the books of the Prophets and the Psalms indicates that God’s yearning for us to be made perfect in Christ is central to his character.

“For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor; I will gasp and pant.”

Isaiah 42:14

The same God who uses birthing language to reveal his deep yearning over us promises Deliverance [Christ] by way of delivery.

Shall I bring to the point of birth and not cause to bring forth?” says the Lord; “shall I, who cause to bring forth, shut the womb?” says your God.

Isaiah 66:9

And praise God, the writers of the New Testament writers experientially describe the process of spiritual transformation in Christ using the same birthing imagery:

My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you–

Galatians 4:6

Speaking in Birthing Language is Intuitive to the Character of God, for God Created the World for Yearning

God created the world as a response and as an echo his own moaning. While God had no need of Creation, he desired it. Simply for the sake of his own desire and to echo his own fullness, God decided to make all things. Mercifully, this means that God has compassion on our desires, and understands the significance of their fulfillment. Just as God had compassion Adam’s longing and created for him Eve as a holistically equipped partner, God desires to be intimately involved in our lives as the answer to our desires. Yet more than humans’ often self-directed and self-focused desires, God greatest desire is for us to become like Jesus.

God’s ultimate desire is to see Jesus in us and adopt us as his sons and daughters.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Galatians 4:4-5

God’s desire to see Jesus in and through us is so great that he imparts this same desire to all of Creation.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

Romans 8:19-22

He even gives this desire [to see Jesus in and through us] to the Angels!

¹² It was revealed to [the prophets] that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

1 Peter 1:10-12

In a Groaning Kingdom, We Must be Attuned to God’s Longing or we will be of very little use

How can we rightly respond to a God who moans if we are not aware of our own desires?

How can we put our desires in alignment with God if we have hungered so little that we cannot hear them?

How can we put our desires in alignment with God if we prefer to pursue our own [warped] sound?

Realistically, God is looking for a people to be his instruments to release HIS sound.

Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work

2 Timothy 2:21

God’s ultimate agenda is to create a Kingdom where every individual is an instrument for good use.

How can we be in Tune with God’s Longing?

How can we aligned to God’s desires? Ultimately, the question begins and ends with desire. While some ascetics would assert that individuals seeking God should seek to reduce their earthly desires, there is a simpler and more fulfilling path, inspired by a God who created humans to have desires. Instead of erasing desire, the goal is to desire God more than anything else.

Initially, a person needs to desire God and allow their hunger to motivate them to seek him. God promises to encounter those who earnestly seek him.

 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

As individuals earnestly seek God, God promises to reward them with revealing himself.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Hebrews 11:6

By drawing close to him, God himself changes our desires and remakes as tuned instruments.

Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

James 4:8

God wants to be found again and again throughout our lives, continuously and across life seasons. He wants to be our greatest desire.

Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Deuteronomy 6:5

God knows are lives are the most meaningful when he is our most important desire. For that reason, Jesus echoes the Deuteronomy 6:5 sentiment in Greek, teaching people that the greatest commandment is still to love God.

Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

Matthew 22:37

From loving God, God will give us the capacity to love others.

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Matthew 22:39

As individuals love God, they will choose to yield to his guidance.

“If you love me, keep my commands.

John 14:15

God becomes a beloved authority figure that we do not want to disobey. When you truly love someone, you don’t intentionally want to dishonor them or do something that would hurt them. In the same way, the love we have for God through the Holy Spirit empowers us to love what is good and reject what is evil.

To be set apart for good use means letting God consecrate your life so that your desires are aligned with his desires. As individuals yield to the Holy Spirit, they allow God to redirect their desires to the things he loves.

Practically, how does this all work out?

One of my favorite things about God is that he is intense. He isn’t hiding and he isn’t playing games. He answers us even out of a whirlwind! When he sees individuals suffering, he responds with an intensity that corresponds to the depth of their pain.

God’s intensity can be intimidating and even cause a healthy fear of the Lord, but you never have to doubt that he is a God who feels deeply and has tremendous emotional range.

This means that God sees and responds to the most hidden desires of our hearts. Nothing is hidden with him. He will respond to prayers that haven’t even been put into words, because of his surpassing goodness. God loves to redeem broken situations, and he will answer us even when we can only wordlessly groan.

God responds to our hunger, not our arguments. He doesn’t need to be convinced to care, he is already involved. If anything, we have to yield in transparency long enough to respond to his invitation to seek him and watch what he will do in a situation.

Is any one of you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

James 5:13-15

If you have the courage to emotionally engage with God, he will reveal and confirm the desires of your heart. Just as people experientially learn one another in relationships, God will use your emotions to teach you about himself and others, if you let him. In learning God, we are better off with a devotional approach that prioritizes connection rather than just academic learning.

Ultimately, Jesus was confident in his relationship with the Trinity because he had experienced them. A worker does not develop expertise just by knowing facts about their trade, but instead, skill and confidence comes through our lived experience. We have to continually seek God if we want to know him for ourselves. No one else can do it for us, and there is no substitute.

It is a given that not all of our human desires are going to be aligned to God’s desires. When it comes to our physical appetites (hunger, thirst, sexual desire), we must choose God’s way over anything that would draw us away from the love of God.

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.

1 John 2:16

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Galatians 5:19-21

In addition to a daily lifestyle of seeking God, there are several ways individuals can listen carefully to their own desires.

Instead of numbing or emotional detachment, when we experience desires that pull us away from the love of God, we can pray for God to send his consecrating fire.

Compare the consecrating fire of God with the destructive lustful fire of Hosea 7:3-7, and you’ll quickly understand the difference.

Destructive Fire

vs.

Consecrating Fire

This consecrating fire is something the Holy Spirit ministers over the lives of individuals who seek him as a solution to our misplaced longing. Unlike the destructive fire of unbridled physical desire, the consecrating fire of the Holy Spirit is constructive, purifying and transforming his people. It still carries the intensity of God, but through Jesus’s finished work, we experientially know that God will receive us.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

Romans 12;1

For our “God is a consuming fire.”

Hebrews 12:29

Smoke rose from His nostrils, and consuming fire came from His mouth; glowing coals blazed forth.

2 Samuel 22:9

Another avenue of alignment is fasting. Traditionally, fasting is a spiritual discipline that Christians have used across centuries to attune their desires to God. The rationale is that as your body makes you more aware of your physical desires (ie, food), you will become more aware of the effect of your desires on your spirit. This could mean getting clarity on your motives before a big decision, or it could help you recognize desires that are pulling you away from the love of God. From fasting, an individual is more aware of their physical desire, and can listen closely to whether it aligns with the desires of God. Usually during this process, the Lord will expose things that have become more important than him in our lives, and we will be better for it. From this place of greater awareness, you can invite God into the process so that he remains your most important desire. You can learn more about fasting and ways to fast safely here.

Some Stories

Realistically, God will use your desires to direct you if you are paying attention. While I aim to be as in tune with God as possible during my waking hours, some of my most intense experiences of God speaking through my desires originated while I was asleep.

One instance where God aligned my yearning to his own was through a night of dreams on February 21st of this year. I had dream after dream of God’s father heart for teens. I saw kids who had lost parents due to genocide and war in Africa, children in Afghanistan who were frozen on a soccer field and unable to move, and other teenagers learning about the prophetic in a kind of dormitory. I was shaken out of my sleep, involuntarily moaning for harvest.

In another dream I had as a teenager, I remember having a similar intense wake up. While I was quite emotionally numb to the world at the time, the Lord used the dream to make me aware of my emotions. In the dream, I was processing loosing a family member. I remember that in grief dream, I went into the person’s closet to smell their scent lingering on black and white checked sweater. I woke up literally sobbing in a shared hotel room on a church trip. My roommates struggled to understand what to do when I woke up. Ultimately, God continued to use that experience to re-activate my emotions, because I had become numb.

Similarly, God used another dream from February 26th of this year to make me aware of his desire for me to develop a future ministry in Asia. In the dream, I was trying to get dressed in new clothing. My step-sister was trying to entertain my little girl, who was mixed, Japanese and Celtic. I was staggering like a drunk person trying to get to my child. She was crying and began wrestling away from my step-sister, and was inconsolably trying to reach me. I woke up frenzied, looking around my space like I had lost a real child. To be honest, I felt that sending this dream was a rather savage move on God’s part, because as someone who has wanted children for most of my life, there was no way for it to not leave a significant impression. Yet God knows my desires and often uses dreams related to adoption, nurturing kids, babies, pregnancy, and birth to direct me in terms of formal ministry. I am no stranger to God using this aspect of my character to direct me, as during my time in the classroom, God used the Spirit of Adoption to help me create very strong bonds with my students. Outside of the classroom, the inclination towards nurture gives me a higher degree of compassion for adults who are struggling and organic connection with youth. Through this dream however, I sensed God entirely redirecting my emotions. Previously, I hadn’t had any personal inclination towards Japan. But now that I have felt God pulling on that nurturing calling through this dream, I would very likely go to Japan if asked. I still can feel the echoes of needing to respond to that child when I think about Japan as a nation, and that feeling isn’t going anywhere.

Apart from dreams, I have very seldomly (3x) experienced such a deep grief over a life event that I entirely loose my appetite for a period of time.

“For I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears…”

Psalm 102:9

In moments like these, I am immediately aware of how much I need God’s help to heal, because the bitterness of my soul has reversed my natural appetite and in a sense, my desire to go on. I’m grateful that these moments have been few and far between in my life, but I remember them all as highly disorienting. To lose your desire for food is like losing another one of your important senses; it can be an indicator that your spiritual health is very off.

A Prayer to be in Tune

Loving God,

Give us the capacity to seek you with all of our hearts.

Awaken our desires and pull us after you,

Deliver us from numbness and the rawness of unhealed emotion,

Help us love what you love and hate what is evil.

Send your consecrating fire so that we can be of good use,

Make us aware of any other competing love that would draw us away from you, and help us conquer it.

Jesus, be our greatest satisfaction and our righteous reward,

Give us grace to make you first all the days of our lives,

Amen.

In coming days, God will make it increasingly common for prophets to prophesy in known and unknown languages. Through dreams, spontaneous/ecstatic prophesy, and a variety of creative means that only God knows, God will impart tongues to prophets and prophetic people so that sons and daughters in EVERY NATION prophesy. He will raise up pockets of prophets in every nation on the Earth and each will be a unique manifestation of the character and specific anointing of their regions. We will form a prophetic family of nations unlike anything the Church has yet seen.

Today, I’m going to be sharing some of my personal experiences and the formation God has started as he has begun to give me prophetic words in foreign languages. I still perceive myself to be relatively young on the journey to prophesy multilingually. However, I am writing this article now while the learning is fresh so that my perspective will be more accessible to others just starting out. I am convinced that because God so treasures the nations, he sovereignly imparts the capacity to prophesy multilingually only to people whom he deeply trusts. I am sharing these stories with the hope that prophets and prophetic people will read this post, seek after God, and be counted trustworthy to grow in prophesy multilingually.

Lord Jesus, make us trustworthy.

Some Context for how Languages and Nations are Related

In the Hebrew bible, nations resembled tribes more than they did modern nation states. As these tribes developed, they were united by a common ancestry, worldview, culture, and language.

The sons of Javan:

Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites and the Rodanites. From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.

Genesis 10:4-5

These are the sons of Ham by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.

Genesis 10:20

These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.

Genesis 10:31

In each of these descriptions, the tribes are defined through their languages. This should be unsurprising, as having one’s own language and culture is part of what delineates one ethnic group from another today. An understanding of nations as ethnic groups with shared cultural and language carries over to the New Testament. In Acts 17:26, Paul mentions the concept of ethnic groups in his address to the Athenians. In this verse, he uses the Greek word “ethnos” (1484 in Strong’s concordance), defined as “people joined by practicing similar customs or common culture and language”.

In the Bible, each nation would have had its own prophets. Prophesy and divination were common in essentially all cultures, and contributed to a sense of national identity. Like faithfulness in a marriage, Hebrew and Christian prophets in the bible were called to prophesy and speak only according to the visual and auditory revelation they received from YHWH. Adopting the divination methods or consulting the spirits of neighboring nations was considered evil (and by definition, witchcraft).

Read more about the differences between Christian prophesy and the mysticism of other religious traditions here.

Hebrew and Christian prophets in the bible would have prophesied to their own nations and to other nations as God prompted them, for his specific purposes. For example, Abraham was a prophet in Canaan long before Jewish immigration. Jonah (eventually) prophesied to Nineveh. Ezekiel prophesies to Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt. In the New Testament, Thomas goes to India. Matthew travels the Mediterranean and ultimately is martyred in Ethiopia.

Jesus’ finished work on the cross created a new covenant where all nations could be reconciled to God through putting their faith in him.

Understand, then, that those who have faith are sons of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and foretold the gospel to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”b 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:7-9, 28

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups [Jews and Gentiles] one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.

Ephesians 2:14

Today, Jesus has created an adoptive family through his body of believers, binding diverse individuals together by the Holy Spirit.

As Jesus’s death and resurrection was an act of reconciling the nations to one another and undoing Babel, Jesus came to provide a common language (through the Holy Spirit) to bring all all languages to the Father. There will be speakers of ALL LANGUAGES represented in Heaven.

**A Personal Opinion** Based on all this and despite our modern model of nation states, I believe prophets should cultivate prophetic words not just for formally recognized nations, but also for existing ethnic groups. For example, this could look like giving a prophetic word to a Korean American community living in Annandale, Virginia (USA). It could look like giving a prophetic word to an African American community living in Michigan (USA). It could look like giving a prophetic word to Turkish immigrants living in Berlin, or the Sahrawi refugee community living in camps in the Algerian desert. As these communities face disproportionate spiritual warfare, prophets should invest in giving timely prophetic words to help them navigate these challenges. From a place of genuine concern and fearsome enduring love, individuals will recognize and respond to the voice of Jesus.

Multilingual Prophesy is a Response to our Hunger for the Nations

In my case, God began to give me prophetic words in multiple languages as a continuation of the decades long process we have been on together to seek the nations. As a child, I grew up in Lawrence, Kansas. While Kansas isn’t necessarily known for it’s diversity, the University of Kansas (KU) draws a significant population of International Students to Lawrence. In the late 1990s and early 2000s when I was young, my elementary school (Hillcrest Elementary) was the sole school of the USD 497 School District to pilot their English as a Second Language program, which taught the sons and daughters of KU’s International Students. My father’s house was literally at the end of the block bordering the school’s property, which meant that from ages 6-12, I attended school with children from 100+ countries.

In this setting, I heard various languages, tasted many kinds of food, spent time in various families’ homes, heard various styles of music, and generally felt rather ridiculous only knowing English.

Food I had a version of this exact cookbook as a kid, and used to dream about the time I would leave my own country to try all kinds of food and meet new people. To this day, Jesus still uses dreams of me learning recipes from different cultures to direct and confirm his desire for me to go to specific regions. One example of this was a dream I had in late February, where I was taught to cook a version of Sujjeonwa (Korean persimmon drink) as a sign of being entrusted specific tools to nurture the next generation in that region. For the record, I have never actually tried this recipe, I definitely had to Google it when I woke up, and I’m very much looking forward to watching how that particular storyline develops.

By sixth grade (age 11/12), my closest friends were from Korea and Mexico. My friend Glenda was my first real friend, and at 11 years old, she challenged me in a way that changed my life. In viewing my behavior issues (there were plenty), she said something similar to “I don’t think this is really who you are.” When she saw through my pretenses and challenged me to rise to her expectations for me, it changed my life. This experience among many others is part of why I believe in children’s capacity to participate in the full life of Christ from an early age. God help us if as adults, we think that we are significantly morally superior to children.

Languages In addition to recipes, God used the rhythms, textures, and sensory element of my friends’ languages to illuminate his design for community. We were raised in a context were it was inevitable and common to learn phrases in each others languages. I remember the feeling of having foreign words in my mouth as a kid, tripping over phrases and being very pleased when finally, it sounded relatively similar. Growing up in this setting made multilingualism expected, so I never doubted that I would learn multiple languages. Ultimately, I chose to learn Spanish because of the love of my friend and her family. Even after we left to go to different secondary schools, I continued learning Spanish through middle school, high school, and study abroad because of the impact of her friendship.

Music With age, my peers and I began to become more interested in the diverse textures of world music. In middle school, I remember a friend bought me a CD from Putamayo Music in an eclectic, international store where I began my love of earrings. At the time, I remember being most drawn to the music of Latin America, with haunting longing songs that today remind me of God’s longing for the nations.

In these songs, I hear a longing of the soul for more of something hard to describe. While secular, these songs still make me think about the the Church longs after the fullness of Jesus.

Today, I am convinced that if you want to love a nation, you must listen to worship music from their languages. There is something so basic in worshipping God in different tongues. On an emotional level, it weaves us together faster than we can do through years of intentional friendships.

On that note, here are some of my favorite new worship songs I have found traveling:

If you are trying to understand a nation or are trying to confirm a calling to that region, listening to their music with your emotions engaged is essential.

I am also convinced that each language reveals something unique about heart of God. Just like nations carry anointings, so do languages! If we love the Church, we must pause to consider how her voice reflects’ Jesus’ voice through her vocabulary and sounds.

As I have traveled through Glasgow, London, Munich, Singapore, and Brazil, my ears have worshipped God. Hearing the Singaporean Dialact of English with “La” as an interjection, listening to Bavarianized German in Munich, and having conversations with individuals at a hostel about how having a regional dialect makes people more approachable has brought even more longing for languages to the surface.

When I was recently in Germany, the Lord showed me how much he loves German’s intensity and their capacity to mirror the full ranges of his emotions. In the German language, you can hear this same intensity, and it’s beautiful.

We must ask God to show us how he wants to be heard through each language. It is not just enough to ask God how each culture of people’s appearances represent his character (responding to him with our eyes), but we must tune our ears to respond and worship him through the diversity of sound.

In my time in the classroom, I shared this missional/apostolic mindset with my students through teaching my students to Pray for the Nations and through worshipping God in a variety of musical styles.

A Month of Praying for the Nations: Group Prayer and Research

Praying for the Nations Part 2: Individual Prayer and Research

My students loved the playfulness of Ada Ehi’s worship out of Nigeria, the sincerity of Josh Yeoh’s worship out of Singapore, and the vocal and emotional range of Rebekah Dawn’s music of out Kenya.

I really put my conservative Latino students to the test when we found Christian worship music in Reggaeton (the equivalent of Rap to conservative African Americans). Still, God will use all textures and styles of music to draw people to himself, to reflect the diversity of his people.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

1 Corinthians 1:27

Each style is different, and says something about the people’s unique gifts.

Personally, I love to listen to worship in Kiswahili because more than just a calling to a region, I feel called to the speakers of this language. Something about the sound effects and phonemes of KiSwahili just makes sense on an intuitive level. In working with International students at the University and Elementary school levels, I have met my fair share of East Africans who speak Kiswahili. However, I believe that instead of sending me to just one nation in East Africa, God has given me a love for this language as a sign of the work of unity he is developing within East African nations.

From what I have seen so far, sometimes Multilingual prophesy is related to a specific word God wants to give to a nation.

When it comes to words for nations, I have experienced God giving me regional words through a nation’s corresponding languages or through national symbols.

Using Languages

As part of the practice of regularly asking Jesus what he is excited to be doing in the nations, I got a word for the Netherlands last October that I immediately had to translate. In the vision, I saw a crowd of people on a ship who were afraid to swim. The name of the ship was “Smeosjes”. Later, I watched as the people became increasingly comfortable and receiving Jesus’ invitation to get in the water.

In this situation, the meaning of the word “smeosjes” was crucial to the main idea of the word and the nation it referenced. After consulting Google, I found out that “smeosjes” is Dutch for “excuses”. After getting a clearer sense of Jesus’ invitation to the people, I contacted friend from the Netherlands to get her feedback. Ultimately, the word did indeed resonate with her sense of how Jesus was inviting the people to abandon their fears of looking improper to enjoy going deeper with him.

Another example of a national word through a different language came to me as a dream. In the dream, I was a man riding a bike with my younger sister on my shoulder. We were both singing a song in a West African language (potentially Yoruba) and celebrating the God’s work of taking the community higher. I believe that this dream was a specific word about the work of multigenerational church family God is creating in Nigeria/West Africa.

Using National Symbols

Apart from just languages, God sometimes includes national symbols to clarify a word’s national audience. For example, I had a dream last August where a Korean woman came to give me a traditional wax seal and scroll for that region. Again, prior to researching the symbols, I did not realize that wax seals were a lasting symbol for that culture.

Another example of God using a national symbol in a dream was through a series of dream I had where the name “Andrew” kept coming up again. In the third or fourth dream, I ultimately saw a picture of a x shaped cross that I later discovered was the St. Andrew’s Cross. This symbol is connected to Scotland’s national history, and as soon as I put this symbol in context, it made way more sense.

Other times, Multilingual prophesy is a fruit of loving a people group and can point towards God’s long term purposes for our lives (calling).

Do you trust God to give you away? Do you realize that your life is not your own?

I ask that because ultimately, God uses languages to draw us to a people group when we have given him permission.

There is no calling that can come to us outside of relationship. When we prophesy multilingually from a place of calling, it carries a greater weight than when we just receive a prophetic word for a nation through their symbology or language. We are able to hear the wisdom, gentleness, beauty, and safety of Jesus’ voice through a different language, and it changes our perception of the Bride permanently. In hearing his voice through a different language and responding to it at the heart level, something changes us.

Prophesying multilingually out of calling is inevitably relational, and originates from the Holy Spirit of Adoption. In this process, God adopts individuals to one another and to a land, and can give us words in that language as a result.

A calling to a people group via multilingual prophesy originates in recognizing the sound of Jesus’ voice through a person of a different culture or through a different language. Again, there is no calling that can come outside of relationship.

Calling Comes From Relationship

As I have mentioned previously, my journey with learning Spanish started when I heard Jesus’ voice through my friend Glenda, whose family is from Mexico. Without saying a word about Jesus, her words had the effect of deliverance ministry on me and challenged me to pursue my true identity in a way that ultimately led me to Jesus. God used the love I had for her and resulting language study to draw me to Chile, where I accepted Jesus. I returned to the US, but continued working with the Latino community in Kansas and DC for six years, most recently in a Catholic, Spanish/English bilingual school in DC. For me, these are several moments in a life long story God used to draw me to Latin America. You can read more about that journey below!

How did God draw me to Latin America?

Two nights after I obeyed God to leave my job (following many words about a season of travel and accelerated ministry training), God sent me a dream explaining specific details about deliverance ministry he has given me for Latin America. In the dream, an Angel told me intensely to write everything I saw down. I saw an image of one sheep, then a flock of sheep. I later heard the word “rebañen” in Spanish along with other instructions. When I woke up, I was shaken by the weight of the word. I discovered that “rebañen” means “to herd”, and “rebaño” means flock.

The next day I was having a very real moment of “What do I even do with this?” when the Lord directed me to Ezekiel 34 in my bilingual Spanish/English bible and clarified further. Despite my fluency in Spanish, God used unknown vocabulary so I would seek him. Since then, he has begun to give me other words in Spanish in dreams (not frequently, but still more than before). As God has given me more prophetic words in different languages (including but beyond Spanish), I am learning that multilingual prophesy is devotional and not academic. It is more than rote language knowledge. Multilingually prophesy out of calling is involuntary and it is more random than internally processing information in a language we have studied.

Multilingual Prophesy is like other Holy Spirit given gifts in the category of Tongues in that is devotional and does not come through our natural understanding or rote study. Check out more on the category of gifts of Tongues in this post.

I received a prophetic word in November 2021 from Emma Stark about having a deliverance ministry in Latin America. While I had been getting dreams about returning for months, I wasn’t expecting to return to Latin America so quickly. In the final part of the word, I remember that she asked me (from the Lord) multiple times, “Are you brave enough for the level of the leap?” At the time, I did not realize that that leap would require quitting my job, traveling for months, and ultimately having open doors to Latin America when God had grown my trust enough to bear it. However, God continued to speak in urgency about returning to Latin America in February, March, and April, as well as the work of exchange he is developing between Latin America and Asia. As I kept searching, a door opened up for me to visit El Shaddai school in São João de Boa Vista, in the state of Sao Paolo, Brazil.

With my natural mind, I really expected to return to Spanish speaking countries in Latin America, given my Spanish fluency and that I was saved on study abroad in Chile. However, the Lord explained that he has brought me to Brazil specifically to expand my ministry and be able to minister in Portuguese so that I will be more effective for the whole continent. Who knew.

In Calling, We Resonate with the Land

Prophets experience different levels of calling to geographic regions. Prophets with a national responsibility can develop prophetic words for nations without being geographically bound to one region. However, when you are called to a region, your natural disposition and underlying beliefs will mirror the values of the people to whom you are called, like being called to a specific person in a marriage. It is the difference between responding to a region as an inhabitant, a visitor, or (worst) as a tourist. When your feet are on the soil of a place you belong, it will feel like you have been there for years because of the way that your insides have been prepared to be grafted. We intuitively resonate and are drawn to specific land.

I was able to return to Latin America about a week ago, and am currently writing this post from Brazil. I can tell you that while I’ve traveled to various places, I have not intuited the emotions of the land as easily as when my feet have been on Latin American soil (regardless of language). As my plane descended to a lower altitude (about 400 miles out of Sao Paolo) last week, I remember being hit with the lands’ emotions in a way that sank into my chest. Right now, I can sense the yearning and the desire of this continent for release. I remembered that sense of resonance from when I first got saved about 8 years ago, and was really hoping that it would come back. Anecdotally, being back on Latin American soil is a relief and a blessing. I feel that I am able to breathe for the first time in 5 months, since I decided to follow Jesus into the unknown.

Personality-wise, I was hoping that my intensity would find a steady home in this continent, which I struggled to find in D.C. (USA). In prophesying my call to Latin America, Emma Stark said, “You actually have the fire, and the passion, and the determination for Latin America. And you have the breakthrough anointing for there as well.” Since I’ve been in Brazil, my emotions are aligned to the emotiveness of the people. I can blend in and not stress about overwhelming people. I don’t have to mince words or step on eggshells. Being here has given me freedom to relate to God’s emotional range more deeply and in a way that feels so much lighter. As I rest in the Lord in this region of calling, he is polishing aspects of my personality (like strength, passion, and freedom) to be a gift to the rest of the body of Christ.

Lord of all the Spirits: The Purity of the Holy Spirit among Mystic Traditions, Past and Present

RECENTLY

Some Final Thoughts

Prophesy is emotional, and multilingual prophesy must come out of God’s love for a people group. You can and should read the bible in multiple languages. You can and should listen to worship in multiple languages. And you can and should listen to prophets prophesy in their native languages.

However, none of these spiritual disciplines can be a substitute for loving a people group or a land. If we want more love, we have to ask Jesus.

**Side note** Currently, my favorite Latin American prophet is probably Magda Felix. She carries such fire that I sincerely hope God elevates her ministry through greater use of technology (ie, Youtube). She has a marvellous breaker anointing and I am sincerely praying God gives her an even greater platform for this region.

Praying for More Love

So Jesus, would you change our insides so that we will be aligned to what you are singing over the nations?

We want to hear your voice through many tongues and people.

We are grateful for English as a temporary lingua franca, but we will see your Kingdom come powerfully through ALL tribes and ALL tongues.

We are grateful for Western prophets, but we will see pockets of prophets springing up in every corner of the earth.

We love you. We are excited for the nations to know you through miracles, signs and wonders.

Show us the part we each have to play and bring us to our right regions.

Make us trustworthy and give us prophetic words in many languages that will bless the nations.

Use us to draw them to your Son.

In the wonderful name of Jesus,

Amen.

Have you ever noticed that some people just seem to have a knack with learning different languages? How is this affinity for learning human language similar and different to gifts related to “tongues” in the the New Testament?

Today we will examine the category of the gift of tongues, which exists establish and communicate the Kingdom of God with new audiences. We will specifically explore 3 specific manifestations of the gift of tongues in Acts, Mark, and other verses. I am writing this article today because along with the Spirit of Adoption, I am convinced that God is currently illuminating gift of tongues to equip his Bride for an increase in international apostolic harvest in coming days and years.

You Must Know the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Adoption

When many people hear the word “tongues” in a Christian context, their immediate first thought is of Charismatic Christians “speaking in tongues” (practicing glossolalia). Given that speaking in tongues (glossolalia) is a large point of division between traditional and Charismatic Christians, we probably first need to address what glossolalia is and isn’t. As someone who has been pretty thoroughly formed by both charismatic and more traditional streams, I’m going to be as precise and gracious as possible in my descriptions. I ask that readers put on enough fear of the Lord and humility to assume that God’s capacity to speak through a range of Christian traditions is greater than our own petty opinions.

Types of Tongues: 1 – Glossolalia

Glossolalia is something Charismatic Christians call “praying in the Spirit” or praying in tongues. Generally, Charismatic Christians believe that glossolalia is a gift of the Holy Spirit that is still essential for today. The main defining feature of glossolalia is that individuals freely utter syllables and word-like sounds that are not a known human language, with the goal of allowing the Holy Spirit to pray through them to establish God’s agenda without human interference. On an individual level, the primary audience for glossolalia is God. Due to the increased level of yieldedness to God (praying not solely the mind but with the spirit), Charismatic Christians consider the practice of glossolalia to have a strengthening effect on their faith and give greater efficacy to their prayers because they have less of an agenda. Individuals who practice glossolalia are quite aware that it doesn’t sound like human language, and consider glossolalia a form of “angelic” or “spiritual” language (as compared to praying in a known human language, praying with your mind). Generally, the bible stipulates that glossolalia (speaking in tongues) within a large group assembly must be interpreted through an individual walking in the gift of interpretation of tongues so that the entire congregation can pray with their minds AND their spirits. Like all evaluating all spiritual phenomena, Christians must use the gift of discernment to understand what manifestations are true or false. That being said, we need to have a generous degree of humility to realize that God often does allow very extreme (ie, strange) manifestations of the Holy Spirit because of his own extreme “otherness“. Unlike extreme manifestations of other spirits, extreme manifestations of the Holy Spirit are never physically dangerous. However, extreme manifestations can and will shake our rigid expectations about how God should move to the very core.

Types of Tongues: 2 – Xenoglossia

In Acts 2:1-13 and 10:44-48, a second kind of tongues is “Xenoglossia”. The greek root “xeno” means foreign (as in, foreigner). “Glossia” means speech. Therefore, xenoglossia is to speak with the known human language of individuals from foreign contexts.

In these verses, believers filled with the Holy Spirit were able to spontaneously speak in foreign languages that they through their own human understanding, they had not previously learned. The speakers’ foreign language capacity seems to be spontaneous, directed towards a specific human audience, using a human language that the audience recognize (likely mother tongue), and specifically time bound to the period of time that the speaker is under the unction of God.

Anecdotally, I have heard two stories of xenoglossia in modern times. For the sake of simplicity and so that we are not distracted, I’m going to leave the stories anonymous. In both instances, the individuals were praying in tongues (glossolalia), and felt the unction of the Holy Spirit changing the specific sounds to something different and more specific than their typical praying in tongues prayer language. In one of these instances, a woman was giving birth in an Israeli hospital, experiencing a difficult delivery. She was singing in tongues over the baby while the nurses did their part to complete the birth. As the mother sang, she noticed that some of the nurses appeared to be shocked at the lyrics the Holy Spirit sang through her. Eventually, one Jewish Israeli nurses left the room in disbelief and anger. Apparently, the mother had been singing Hebrew scriptures over the baby throughout the process of intense birthing. This birthing experience was a prophetic sign of how some Israeli Jewish individuals will come to freely put their faith in Jesus.

In another instance, a man was also praying in a small group setting in Asia, using glossolalia. He also felt his stream of syllables change from his regular prayer language into an Asian tonal language. In that moment, he was anxious that it would seem like he was making a racial slur and that it would seem like he was manipulating his tongue (the language) by his own volition. Still, he abandoned the fear of disgrace and allowed himself to utter the syllables that he felt the Holy Spirit directing. In the group of about 8-10 individuals standing nearby, one man began intensely sobbing. Apparently, the Holy Spirit was speaking to the sobbing man in fluent Cantonese, through the first speaker on a topic that was very intimate. The speaker was unaware what he had said, so the listener had to ultimately explain. Due to the location of meeting, the tonal nature of the language, and the specific sound effects, the speaker had assumed that he was speaking in Mandarin. However, when the speaker was informed as to the specific language and the context of the message, he was humbled and pleasant surprised.

In both of these contexts, the message that the Holy Spirit spoke through the individual was extremely personal. The audiences had powerful emotional reactions as the Holy Spirit revealed the desires and hidden thoughts of their hearts (something the Holy Spirit tends to do best).

Types of Tongues: 3 – New Tongues

While the Church has historically explored glossolalia and xenoglossia to a relatively high degree, there is a third kind of tongues mentioned in Mark 16:17-18 that Christians will need to understand in order to partner with God for the international harvest work he is amplifying in the coming days and years.

The writers of the New Testament refer to glossolalia as praying in the spirit. In Greek, they refer to xenoglossia as speaking in heteros “different, neighboring” (2087) dialektos “languages” (1258) (Strong’s concordance definitions of words taken from Acts 2:1-13).

Yet in Mark 16:17-18, another word is introduced.

And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

Mark 16:17-18

The Greek word for “new” in the text is kainais, from the Greek root kainos (2537). This is the same root that Jesus used in describing how new wine must be put in new wineskins. It is defined by Strong’s concordance as “fresh, new, unused, novel.”

Jesus continues to use kainos as an adjective to describe the new wine he will drink with his followers in heaven, the new heavenly garments his followers will wear, and the new covenant. His followers continue to use it to discuss the fresh tomb he was laid in, and new creation (including our new nature in Christ).

One of the best articles I have found on the subject of Mark 16:17-18 new tongues is by Bill Lockwood. Lockwood defines the gift of new tongues in Mark 16:17 as “a fresh or new way of speaking; not a new kind of utterance unknown to mankind”. In the article, Lockwood’s main idea is that the gift of new tongues is a form of grace to learn known human languages through study. I agree that grace to learn new human languages fluently is connected to the category of tongues. However, based on the usage of the word kainos, I believe that the gift of new tongues actually relates to innovation, and a grace for pioneering new ways of speaking and sharing the gospel.

Again, the entire category of tongues relates to establishing and communicating the Kingdom of God with new audiences. In each age, God equips some individuals to share the gospel exceptionally, pioneering new teaching styles, new tools, and new expressions of living the gospel. Within our present age, some individuals live with a tangible grace for technology and broadcasting media. However, we will have barely read the book if we believe that technology as we know it will be the sole way God reveals his new methods of revelation in this century. We will see an increase in Holy-Spirit initiated prophetic signs, to respond to individuals hunger and desire for experiencing God. As shaking on the Earth increases, we will see individuals’ hunger for God increase. Their desire will re-establish the wovenness of mind, body, and spirit (undoing Greek dualism). As the hungry seek and are satisfied, we will see an increase in sacramental thinking that paves the way for radical multiplication of miracles. In close partnership with his Spirit, God will give individuals creative liberty to work miracles as he illuminates the mindset behind them: That the Holy Spirit’s sovereign power weaves through our entire lived experience.

Why does this matter?

We will see children moving intuitively in miracles, signs, and wonders (Acts 2:17). To accept anything less is to rob Jesus of a measure of worship he paid for in blood, and to rob the nations of their inheritances from the Lord. The Lord has given the nations children (born again believers of ages, but also youth), and they are a gift (Psalm 127:3).

God is pouring out the gift of new tongues on individuals who will model his wildness, skill, and beauty in worship and prophesy. God created worship and prophesy to be as creative as the Holy Spirit. We should always expect God to encounter us through a variety of methods, and innovate new ways to share his voice with others. We must be more multilingual to mirror the beauty of Revelation 7:9 throne room worship. We must be purer voices than the mediums and witches, with greater manifestations of the favor and power of God through our loving obedience. We must expect to inherit more and pursue the “more” God wants to release, because whatever we receive, we can pass on to our children. We cannot afford to settle for anything less than the fullness of God.

A Prayer for God to Open Our Ears

Word of God, give us the capacity to hear and respond to your voice.

Remove any deafness that stops us from hearing you clearly.

Help us to hear the sound of your voice in and through the world’s languages,

Help us to communicate in the languages of heaven,

And to receive new languages to declare you to the world,

Equip us so that we can hear your Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Amen!